


Repetition

by RavensWing



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Lucy is a fish who doesn't need a bicycle, PWP which means posted without proofing, author uses super convoluted logic to get to characters to bang, but I am an author who needs her to bang Wyatt, feelings make a mess, time travel makes a mess, time traveling with feelings makes a bigger mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 09:55:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10274267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensWing/pseuds/RavensWing
Summary: Lucy is willing to do anything to get Amy back, to get that journal out of Garcia Flynn's hands, even if that anything includes sleeping with her teammate.Set during episodes 1x10-1x14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I binge watch a TV show where I spend the entire time yelling “JUST BANG EACH OTHER ALREADY. STOP WITH THE GOOGLY EYES AND JUST FUUUUUCK!”. So. This is my unapologetic porn with accidental kind of plot. Do with it what you will.

History repeats itself.

She knows that fact better than anyone, which is why she absolutely will not let her heart (or her hormones) or whatever the hell is going on inside of her come up with a victory. The only time people who lead with their hearts end up in history books is always accompanied with the footnote of horrible tragedy. Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Napoleon and Josephine. Héloïse and Abelard. Adolf and Eva. _Don’t_ even get her started on Bonnie and Clyde.  She is not about to add Lucy and Wyatt to that list.

It is stress, she tells herself. The urges, the desires, that always make her blush when he catches her eye across the room or helps her out of the Lifeboat are all just because of stress. She is cracking under it. She remembers the words he said to her in Germany about knowing what she is fighting _for_ as a way to keep from falling apart, but she does not exactly know what to do when she is fighting _against_ something.

Like her own damn hormones.

“Lucy.” Her mother’s voice cuts through the fog. “Your tea!”

She snaps back to reality to see her mother pointing at the screaming tea kettle. How long had it been whistling? Her hands shake as she cuts the gas on the stove and brings the kettle to pour herself a cup. The scents of chamomile and lavender fill her nostrils as she pours and she wonders how long she has to wait before she can drink it without burning her mouth to oblivion. This stuff is supposed to be calming, but she has the feeling that it is not even going to take the edge off.

Maybe she can figure out a way to inject it directly into her neural system.

“You okay?” It is her mom again and she all but jumps out of her skin again.

“Huh? Yeah. Sorry.” She wraps her hands around her mug to keep it from sloshing.

“What is going on with you?” Her mother sits on the stool across the kitchen island from where Lucy stands. “You haven’t been yourself in weeks.”

“I just -” She has a lie for this. She has practiced it in the mirror, but it still feels wrong saying it to her mother. “You know. I just am trying to figure some stuff out. It has all been so sudden with my new position -.”

Her mother frowns and cuts her off with a cluck of her tongue. “They work you too hard there. Who has ever heard of a historian working such bizarre hours?”

“Yeah. Well.” Lucy just shrugs. Her mother’s indifference is familiar territory at this point, but she still does not quite know how to field it. What she wouldn’t give for a little backup right about now. If Amy were here - “I’m just thankful to have a job in my field.”

“A job that is so stressful you can’t live with your fiance? Noah is going out of his head about all of this.”

It’s a low blow, especially considering her recent train of thought (and the fact she has to think hard to remember who Noah is) and Lucy looks down at her tea.

“It’s complicated, mom.”

“Oh. I know it is, babydoll, and I’m not pressuring you. You know you can stay here as long as you need.”

The sound of the phrase _babydoll_ sends a braid of guilty pleasure so tightly down her spine that there is no way Lucy knows there is no way she can continue this conversation right now. She’s gotten better at lying, but she is nowhere near good enough to cover the blush that is spreading like wildfire across her skin at the recollection of a kiss that should mean nothing.

“Thanks mom.” She fakes a yawn. “I’m going to head to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She is on her way out of the kitchen, tea in hand, before she is even done speaking.

“Anytime you want to talk - you know where to find me!” Her mom calls after her, and Lucy feels bad for her hasty exit.

But she would feel even worse if she spilled the beans about the real reason why she had to leave.

It is only five seconds after she turns out the light before her fingers dip below the waistline of her panties. She thinks of a kiss that meant nothing and everything at the same time. She thinks of him and sighs.

_Wyatt._

….

She has no idea where he lives.

She has traveled, cumulatively, hundreds of years with the man, fought nazis, forged history, bested serial killers, but she has no idea where he sleeps at night. It is probably safer that way. If they don’t know where the other people in their team lives there is no way they can lead Rittenhouse to them, not that Rittenhouse would need any of them for that.

It seems they know everything anyway.

….

Trysts don’t make history.

Well - for the most part - they don’t if you are just a regular person. History making one-night-stands are reserved for movie stars and she is just a lowly historian so she is fairly certain she is not on any radar large enough to cement any kind of legacy. What she is more interested in is erasing the diary Flynn has in his possession.  

Maybe, just maybe, she can alter the line of her life just enough that the book ceases to exist. Maybe, just maybe, she can work her way out of this. Maybe a tryst is just what she needs.

….

Lucy pops out her earbuds as she enters the house, winded and flushed. She’s taken up running, and she is bad at it, but she has heard it is a good stress reliever and boy howdy does she need some of that. She makes her way back to the kitchen to grab a drink of water to wash down the entire bottle of ibuprofen she is going to need after that extremely long (maybe she actually hit a mile this time) torture session when it happens.

“Noah stopped by. He left these.” Carolyn Preston points to the lush arrangement of peonies and roses on the kitchen counter. “Honestly Luc, you need to go talk to him. The poor boy is going nuts.”

And just like that, all the stress is back.

She grabs a glass and goes to the fridge.

“There’s nothing to talk about, mom.” She is tempted to put back in her ear buds and keep running. Always running. Never getting ahead.

“Nothing to talk about?” She can hear the disbelief in her mom’s voice, will see it in her face if she looks. “Lucy.”

Carolyn uses that special tone on her name. The ones that only mom’s can use to convey the fullness of their disappointment, and she cannot deal with that right now (which makes her feel guilty because there was a time not too long ago when she would have given _anything_ to hear her mom say her name like that - or at all).

“I’ve got to take a shower.” She says, running from the room but not escaping.

“Call him, Lucy!” Her mom’s voice follows her up the stairs but she doesn’t want to call anybody.

Not Noah.

Not Rufus.

Not Agent Christopher.

And sure as hell not Wyatt (except for the fact that that is exactly what she wants).

She turns the shower on cold and jumps right in.

….

Flynn is in 1780 and Lucy knows their objective before Agent Christopher even finishes the briefing. It is Benedict Arnold. Flynn is going after the man who almost single-handedly lost the Revolutionary War for the colonies, and she knows she should be horrified. She should be outraged at Flynn’s nerve, and she is. She is, but Wyatt is there too looking tousled and irritable and she wants to _kiss_ him with her _fist_ for being so distracting.

What is his deal anyway?

She knows the answer. Love of his life murdered and he feels responsible and she feels for him. She _does_. She isn’t a monster, and if Jessica were still living there is no way she would even entertain these thoughts, but Jessica is gone just like Amy is gone so she knows it is awful to lose someone you love beyond your own life. 

She _knows_. 

She’d do anything to get back Amy, but the annoying thing is that the while the whole tortured backstory normally wouldn’t get much more than a sympathetic sigh from her (seriously. She does not go for bad boys with chips on their shoulders. Her insanely wonderful, understanding fiance is proof of that even if she can hardly remember his name.) Wyatt’s history has her rethinking the merits of a good old fashioned tormented soul.

And now she is going back in time with him. Again. Always. Racing against the odds to try to save the world and she cannot help but wonder when they ever get to save themselves.

….

She doesn’t want to change _all_ of history, just hers. 

She wants to change what she wrote in that journal. She wants to have her sister back. To do that, however, it is clear she will have to do something against the very fiber of her being. She is going to have to disrupt the flow of time. She is going to have to do something that will alter her course and hopefully the course of her journal and her sister’s existence.

She knows she is justifying.

She knows she is doing the thing she hates, but if that means stopping herself from becoming the same as the monster they are fighting then - yeah okay.

She respects the butterfly. She doesn’t want to step on a lot of them - just one. Just hers.

She knows that there is no change that she can make in only her life that will not ripple out and touch the world, but that is a risk she is willing to take. It is a risk she has to take, because she is not going to let Flynn win.

And _that_ is what this is about. Not about how she is sitting in the Lifeboat flushed from head to toe because Wyatt looks nice in his period clothes with his hair brushed for once or how one piece has slipped over his forehead and she wants to brush it back or how she has to squeeze her knees together to ignore the fact that she is wet. No. It is not about those things.

She is taking back control over her life and she is going to do whatever it takes to make that happen, and it just so happens that that course correcting thing seems to be Wyatt.

….

She always liked playing dress-up as a child. She would imagine wild fantasies of her favorite historical figures all dressed in ill-fitting clothes, but nothing could prepare her for the intense discomfort of the real thing. Well she is experiencing it now and she is not impressed. The level of compression she is feeling at the hands of her authentic corset is making it difficult to breathe - to think - and that is dangerous.  Especially with Flynn nearby.

He has been better and better at spotting them. Better and better at using his head start to set traps for them. Blending in with the time period is not enough anymore which always proves to more difficult than any of them anticipate. She may be hellbent on changing her own history, but she will not compromise the whole of America’s existence just because she needs to get laid.

“You’re awfully on edge ” Wyatt says as they shake off the post flight nausea and unbuckle after the jump.

“Yeah. Well. None of us are prepared to go back to a world that does not have the United States in it and that is one of the worst case scenarios here and we seem to be really good at landing in at least one worst case scenario each time we go on these missions.” Lucy hisses under her breath and she blames her corset for her additional nausea and testiness at his concern. Yeah. Her corset. 

“Whoa there.” Wyatt is already unbuckled reaches across to touch her knee. She is forced to look into deep blue eyes that she absolutely has not thought about while pleasuring herself. “Breathe. Everything is going to be okay.”

But she cannot breathe. Not with him so close and her corset so tight and the crease between his eyebrows so deep with worry that she wants to smooth it with her fingertips, her lips. Instead she redirects her attention to unbuckling with a tense nod.

“I’ll relax when we are back in 2017 and the USA still exists.” She fumbles with the final fastener. She deflects further to distract from trembling fingers: “What about you, Rufus?”

“I always breathe better when I am not in a time period where I have to provide papers to prove I am not someone’s property on demand.” Rufus says from the control board and Lucy and Wyatt both tacitly agree that he has them both beat.

…..

If she were a different person she would not do this. She would not take advantage of Wyatt coming over to her to press her case for sex while they wait on Flynn and Benedict Arnold. She would focus on the mission - except this is kind of her mission too - and not just for the orgasm. She wants Amy back, wants that journal gone, and it is becoming increasingly clear that if she wants that to happen she will have to take matters into her own hands.

“You doing okay?” He has that voice that he uses when he is uncomfortable and trying to hide it. So every time actual feelings come into play about anything.

Lucy looks up to him, casts a fleeting glance over to where Rufus stands a safe distance away, and she looks back at Wyatt and she cannot believe she is about to -

“I think we should sleep together. For history.” She blurts on a hard whisper and the instant the words are out of her mouth she replaces them by worrying her cuticle.

He blinks, frowning that infuriating crease back into place, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“You think we should what now?”

Her entire body is on fire. Her mouth works but no words come out, her mind scrambling for a way out of this, but she cannot think with him looking at her the way he is. Like he thinks he misheard her. Like he hopes he hadn’t

Rufus breaks the silence and intrudes into their private world.

“Can someone please explain to me how the hell we got here and what the hell we are going to do now?”

Wyatt’s eyes never leave Lucy’s face, trying to read between her lines, and maybe that butterfly is squashed now. Maybe now nothing else has to happen between them but somehow that idea brings more disappointment than excitement.

“I - I don’t know, Rufus.” She stutters. “I don’t know.”

….

She is such an idiot.

She never should have said anything. She should have trusted the process and let Agent Christopher arrange a way for Amy to return but now she has just made everything awkward. She can feel Wyatt staring at her, trying to work the puzzle she’d laid out in front of him at the same time as he is trying his damndest to not just shoot Flynn in the head.

Flynn. Who is doing _his_ damndest to get them all killed but she is perversely glad he is there because otherwise she would be alone in David Rittenhouse’s lair with Wyatt after she basically threw herself at his feet.

What is _wrong_ with her?

Maybe if she had had her head in the game instead of her heart or - you know - her vagina, David Rittenhouse would not have a gun pointed at Wyatt’s head. Maybe if she didn’t absolutely embarrass herself and objectify her teammate that is helping to save, basically, _the world as they know it,_ they wouldn’t be in this spot in the first place.

Her entire job is time, knowing what happened and when and how it shaped the world, so you’d think she would have a better sense of timing.

….

She could have struggled more, could have fought harder, and she knows that but there is something sickly comforting about being kidnapped by Flynn right now. He may be the villain of this story, but she is not the hero. That is for sure.

So when she gets aboard The Mothership, she buckles herself in without complaint. She knows he will have the pilot take off if she is ready or not, and in some ways she is just so fucking ready to be anywhere but here. Just as the world begins to take on the eerie green-blue haze of time and space shifting around them, Flynn looks across to her from where he buckled with a knowing smirk.

“Isn’t it interesting that you have two partners - and yet you only called out for one of them?”

He is so damn smug about it, too. Like he has her all figured out (which he kind of does if the journal is even half true and she did kind of leave out Rufus in her cry for help but there no way in hell she is going to come to close to admitting that to Flynn ever) and she hates him for it. She sets her jaw, juts out her chin, and looks him dead in the eye.

“Go to hell.” She says.

He chuckles.

“I’m afraid I’m already there.”

….

1893 Chicago is everything she imagined it would be. The city is abuzz with ideas and innovation and she wishes she could just lay out and _bask_ in it, but as she listens to Flynn’s agenda she realizes she is going to have her hands full.

I mean - history doesn’t just name a building The Murder Castle without good reason. But she has good enough reason to get into it. Which is probably the only reasons she doesn’t make a total fool of herself when she meets Harry (OMG) Houdini and helps Flynn rope him into his scheme.

She needs her team back as much a they need her.

Now is not the time to lose her head any more than she has already lost it. So she keeps it cool. She whispers and smiles and laughs and schemes with until Harry is unlocking the door that holds both Rufus and Wyatt behind it and -   _gods_ \- when she finally does see him again, when he wraps his arms around her like he won’t ever let go, she wonders how she ever thought it could be okay to be anywhere but here.

….

When she has nightmares, this is what she dreams. She dreams of inescapable, close spaces. She dreams of death and pain and inevitable doom. She dreams of dying alone, but she knows she isn’t.

He is here, somewhere, close, and he will save her. She knows he will, but first she has to save herself.

So she breathes, focuses, and tries to bring everything she can remember about H.H. Holmes into focus. She remembers, it seems, just enough to set him on edge. She remembers speaking the word: _I have seen your past, and I know your future_ \- and she wonders how much of that is just wish fulfillment on her end.

She does not know her past, she wishes she could see her future. Then, maybe, then she would be able to take the pieces of her life and arrange them in the way she sees fit. Maybe then she would be able to make sense out of the mess that is now her existence.

At the end of it though she cannot say she is upset when Wyatt lodges a bullet in H.H Holmes’ sick, sadistic face.

She may not be one for stepping on butterflies, but she is all for crushing that sonofabitch.

When they make it out of the house of horrors and back to the lifeboat she realizes she has not actually _looked_ at Wyatt this entire time. Not really. Not in anything more than a frantic, _thank-gods-you’re-not-dead_ way. Now that they are out of imminent danger (well - as much as they ever can be when you are playing chess against a homicidal maniac and a ruthless secret society) she meets his eyes and the air goes out of her lungs.

She sees him - and he sees her and she feels all of the stress of the last two adventures fall from her mind.

They don’t lose each other’s gaze until they touch back down in present day. By the time she goes to loosen her buckles her cheeks are flushed, her legs and weak, and she is so sorry for whomever has to clean her historical undergarments because honestly this is ridiculous. They haven’t even touched, haven’t even readdressed her premature proclamation, and maybe he had forgotten. Maybe he really hadn’t heard what she said. After all it was hundreds of years ago.

Kind of.

Not really.

She let’s Wyatt get out first.

Rufus looks at her on the way out. “You okay?”

Her eyes go to where Wyatt is walking away to start his mission debriefing before coming back to the other member of her team.

“Nothing that a little time won’t fix.”

She says and she wishes it was true.

….

“I think you’re right, you know.” Wyatt says as she hangs up her clothes on the appropriate racks and she startles. She hadn’t heard him approach.

“Wh - what -” Her heart jumps into her throat - starting a question she already knows the answer to. “What are you talking about?”

He meets her eyes in that unsettling way that leaves her in knots, the way that makes her feel like he sees her every thought, but there is something else in this too. There is something dark and wild in his eyes that she only sees when he is about to go in for the kill and _that_ should _not_ make her wet, but it does.

(And that is only the beginning of the reasons why she is going to have to invest in a shrink the second she gets back to her proper time stream.)

“You said we should sleep together - for history - and I don’t know what that means but yeah. We should.” This time he is the one who is edgy, a bit too tightly wound, and she wonders if he is slipping like she had been in World War II. She wonders if he is always this edgy but now, for some reason, it shows.

Maybe it is the Murder Castle.

Maybe it is because of her kidnapping or that Flynn has gotten away again because for how much that grates on her she knows it grates on him tenfold.

Or maybe he just has a hundred-year-old itch like she does that needs to be scratched.

So she nods, stupidly, unable to find the words to confirm her own diagnosis of the situation.

For how much she thought about this, she really underthought it.

“You got anywhere you gotta be?” He asks and this time she shakes her head, alternately entirely sure what is happening and not believing it. “Your place or mine?”

This is happening. She stiffens her gelatin knees.

“Y-yours.” Of course she would stutter.

Of course he would do that stupid half-grin.

“I’ll drive.”

She follow ten steps behind him all the way to his car on wobbly legs.

….

They don’t exactly talk on the drive.

He asks if she is comfortable (in regards to temperature - because they both know she is not otherwise) and apologizes for the mess (how much fast food can one man eat?) but that is about it. Unless you count her awkward throat clearing or his incessant finger tapping on the steering wheel as talking.

He drives an automatic, but she thinks for one second that his hand will slip off of the gearshift and land on her thigh. She tells herself that is stupid, but really, how stupid is it? They are going to his place to, presumably, fuck. So why wouldn’t ge touch her leg? But he doesn’t. In fact he doesn’t so much as look at her as he drives them to a side of town she doesn’t frequent.

Uncharted territory in so many ways.

She watches out of the corner of her eye as shadows shift and change on his face passing under street lamps and traffic lights. The lines of his neck, his jaw, are tense. She wants to ask him why. She want to access that dark, hidden part of him that she has only seen peeking through cracks he has led her to.

She knows better than to say anything though it takes everything inside of her to bite her tongue. Instead she reaches out her hand and puts it on his thigh.

He drives a bit faster after that.

….

He lives in a condo, but it has two parking spots he tells her like he is somehow ashamed of where he lives and that makes it better. She lives with her mom because she cannot stand the sight of her fiance, so she has no room to really judge, but it does seem odd. Of all the places she had pictured him living, this is not one of them.

He fumbles with his keys. She doesn’t know if she should chalk his misstep up to nerves or exhaustion or maybe a bit of both. Even if it was over a hundred years ago - he had just killed a man. She doesn’t know how you just come home after something like that.

She remembers Flynn telling her how he would leave his wife and child if they were returned to him, and she wonders if Wyatt would do the same for Jessica. If he could. If she would want him to.

The door pops open and they go inside. He flips on the lights.

It is simple, spartan even. The entry hall opens right into the living area which looks like very little living actually happens there. There is nothing personal about the space, but she supposes that makes sense. Why personalize a space you are only going to live in until the next mission?

She doesn’t like the idea of him leaving, of him not being part of her life, of being only one more member of a never ending series of teams. She looks at him from where he stands beside her.

“Do you want a beer or some water or -”

She grabs his face and kisses him. She can’t do this if he talks, if he makes it feel like anything more than she can let it be. She isn’t the girl who does these kinds of things, and she cannot think about it anymore. She just needs it to happen.

He does not seem to mind her trajectory, seems all too willing to fall into her, and she’ll take it. If she is using him to get something, she really cannot begrudge him the same thing. Can she?

His hands bury in her hair and she is aware that he is leading them somewhere else in the condo. She trusts him, doesn’t open her eyes, tries her very best to not think about the fact that they are inevitably heading to his bedroom.

He presses her back against a wall, filling every gap and curve of her frame with his bulk. He is stronger, harder, than the wall. Her hands fall away from his face and wrap around him, pulling him tighter against her. She arches, clawing into his shoulders, and this shouldn’t feel so good. The way his mouth latches onto hers, hungry and willing, should not feel so necessary.

This is supposed to be simple, but one large hand hitches up her shirt so he can run calloused fingers up her spine and the electricity it creates is not simple.

This is Wyatt. Brusque, reckless, inconsiderate, ruthless Wyatt. Thoughtful, passionate, sensitive, headstrong Wyatt. Wyatt who always operates in the black and white. Wyatt who drives her absolutely crazy with his lack of respect for history. Wyatt who just trusts her when she says they should sleep together for history (whatever _that_ means). Wyatt who’s eyes were a little too sad, a little too desperate leaving headquarters tonight. Wyatt who is spreading her legs with his thigh and abandoning her mouth to work down her jaw, her neck, sending sparks and - okay.

This is not simple, but it is not the worst idea she has ever had.

She does not expect him to lift her, to hitch her legs up around his hips, but he does. Her ankles lock at the small of his back instinctively, arms wrapping his shoulders, and he moves her from the wall so he is bearing her entire weight. He brings his face out of her neck and looks up at her, eyes hooded and disbelieving.

“Tell me to stop - or I won’t.” He says and she realizes that even though she had started this, he will let her finish it. Even though she can feel how much he wants her to stay pressed against the fly of her jeans, he will let her leave. Hell - he’d drive her back to her car and this would be the last of it.

But that will not change her future, her past, her present. That will not somehow shift something just enough that she does not side with Flynn - does not lose Amy. That will not change the fact that part of her, somewhere inside, actually wants this to happen. Not sleeping together will do nothing but keep everything the same, and that will not do.

But she cannot say any of this so she ducks her head down and kisses him harder than necessary. He takes the hint and with hands hooked beneath her thighs he carries her down the hall.

His room is dark as he lays her back onto his bed. His long, thick body comes to rest half over her, half to the side. One hand ventures under her shirt up to the cage of wire and satin and squeezes. She moans and she cannot remember the last time someone did that. Come to think of it she cannot remember the last time she did any of this - wonders when the last time was for him.

If it was Jessica.

She breaks away on a gasp and he freezes.

“What?” She can see the faint illumination of his face from the hall light, can see that furrowed brow, and okay. Jessica is not here. She may never be here again. So Lucy reaches with delicate fingers and smooths the worried space. Her hand slips to this side of his face and he leans into it - turns to kiss her palm.

The sweetness of the gesture takes her breath.

Of all the things she had expected from this encounter, somehow sweetness hadn’t made it into the equation and she is not sure how to handle it. So she doesn’t. Instead she let’s her hand fall from his face to grab at the hem of his t-shirt. He gets the hint and it is gone in a breath.

He doesn’t have one of those fitness model bodies with photoshopped abs and pecs bigger than her breasts (not hard to do, honestly). His strength is functional, firm, and solid. She sees silver outlines of scar tissue in the dark and she wants to kiss each mark.

Her shirt is next.

Seems he is of the I’ll-You-Mine-If-You-Show-Me-Yours mentality and that is fine except she does not remember the last time someone saw her any kind of naked for reasons other than medical ones. She feels her entire body flush as he unhooks the front clasp of her bra and lets it fall away. His breath is deep and uneven as his gaze falls to all that is exposed to him. A reverent glow catches in his eyes and he is looking at her like he thinks she is amazing and beautiful and she doesn’t know what to do with that either so she sits up and hooks a hand around his neck at the same time.

Their lips crash together in cadence with their bodies and the skin on skin friction is enough to make her make all kinds of embarrassing noises. Her fingers explore the expanse of him, the dips and ridges of muscles over his back, the sparse sprinkling of hair across his chest, and it seems he wants to return the favor.

He crashes them back onto the bed and abandons her mouth to worship all of the newly revealed skin. He leaves stinging, biting kisses down the column of her throat that might leave a mark she isn’t going to be able to explain (she really does need to get better at that lying thing) until he reaches the peak of her breast with merciless teeth and lips. Each pull and suck sends a current straight to her groin and she lifts her hips reflexively.

He understands what she needs, needs it too.

His lips travel down the lean slope of her stomach while careful hands undo the fasteners of her pants and hook onto the waistband. He doesn’t draw out the process, is not a man for half-measures, so when her pants come off her underwear come off at the same time. She’d already lost her flats somewhere along the way (maybe when he lifted her to wall like a rag doll? _shit_ ) and he is able to pull them off without too much trouble.

And he is on her before she has a chance to be embarrassed.

He covers her with his body, one work rough hand pressing into her folds while his breath teases the sensitive shell of her ear. “Tell me what you like.”

The sound of his voice in her ear, so low and sex-wrecked, triggers an eruption of chills across her skin just as his thumb finds the small bundle of nerves that has been aching to be touched for hours, days.

“That.” She gasps. “I like _that_.”

He smiles into the curve of her throat and doesn’t let up. Instead he heightens the situation by pressing a finger into that sweet empty place between her legs. His free hand finds her breast and the two work at her mercilessly as he reclaims her mouth. Her hands find purchase on his shoulders as she just holds on.

Distantly she considers that this must all be a bizarre dream - that she will wake up at her desk in her room with Amy coming in the door with toast and tea and they would laugh about how she shouldn’t fall asleep while reading history texts. Then he slicks in a second finger and no - this is no dream. No dream could feel like _that_.   

It doesn’t take long once he does that. She’s been turned on for centuries at this point and when the first wave of clenching ripples wash over her, he pulls back his mouth and just watches her face as she comes. Watches how he makes her come, and _gods_ does she come. It is roll after roll of molten heat exploding out from her center until she is left melted and burned up beneath him. 

He pulls away only when he seems satisfied that she is finished and strips off the rest of his clothes with military precision. She can see him then, curving up towards his stomach, and she knows he must be beyond ready. He’s been hard for a long time and despite her post-orgasmic lassitude she can feel her body winding back up just at the sight of him.  

She hears the distant crinkle of a condom wrapper and then he is on top of her again, spreading her legs with his. He settles his hips in line with hers and meets her eyes. 

“You okay?” He asks and she has no idea how to answer that. 

She _should_  be okay. _She_  is the one who suggested this, but she had never expected - never dreamed that the experience would be anything like this. She never thought that it could be something this good - _so effortlessly great_  - that she cannot trust herself to think about it without assigning meaning. 

She nods, not trusting her voice, and reaches down and lines him up. He pushes in and even though she is no virgin and she is wetter than she has ever been she feels that age-old burning ache as he works himself in and out until he is fully seated inside of her and just holds. 

His arms shake by her head where he braces on elbows above her. His eyes are squeezed closed, every muscle in his body pulled taut, and for one moment she is glad for his hesitation because he feels _huge_. Then the next she is ready for him to _move_  and she cants her hips against his because she does _not_ need any more time to overthink that this is actually happening. 

He moves with a groan. His thrusts are strong and square, rubbing her in just the right places, and she is horrified when she feels her second climax building. She’s never been a multiple orgasm type of girl - but then again she’s never been much of an _anything_  girl. Her history of sexual partners could be summed up on one hand and none of it had been all that stellar. So when she feels the first swell begin to crest and crash over her, she is just as surprised as he seems to be. 

He picks up his pace, keeping his thrusts short and rapid so he can grind his pelvis against hers until her spine goes rigid and her head snaps back and he _bites_  the racing pulse-point in her neck. 

If the last time had been rolling waves, this is a white hot rocket of blinding energy. She looses track of herself, her body blending together into a kaleidoscope of sensation, but she thinks she hears him murmuring against her skin. She thinks she can feel him lick the teeth worried skin of her throat. She thinks she hears him growl her name as his thrusts turn to jerks and spasms and barely catches himself from crushing her with his body. 

She stares beyond his shoulder to his ceiling, waiting for her body to come back to itself, and - _holy shit_ \- she does not know about her past but she knows this is something that will unavoidably shape her future and not just in the being-ruined-for-all-other-men side of things. She’s just had sex with Wyatt and they are going to have to go through time still all the while knowing just how the other one feels. As the haze of it all (racing pulses, heavy breathe, spectacular orgasms) begins to fade - she cannot remember how she ever thought this was a good idea. 

He pulls out of her and they both inhale on a hiss - over sensitive and a little sore - before he rolls to his side. She flashes back to the last time she lay on a bed with him like this, shoulder to shoulder, in their shared room with Bonnie and Clyde and she is not prepared for that memory. She is not prepared to even think of things like soulmates and true love. Not when everything is as confusing as it is. 

She reaches for her clothes, suddenly feeling very exposed, and he doesn’t stop her. 

“Bathroom?” She asks and he points to a door in the corner, but he does not look at her - seems as unable to move as she had been a few moments before. 

She finishes gathering everything up and darts to the bathroom before he shifts. She shuts the door and turns on the light. It is blinding after the time spent in the dark and she catches her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her skin is red and mottled from neck to navel from his mouth and stubble. Her lips are swollen and ripe. Her cheeks are flushed a bright pink and she is practically _glowing_. 

She turns away and sits on the toilet. She shrugs back into her bra and pulls on her shirt. She stands, flushes, and works her clothes back onto her lower half. Her cheeks reach a new shade of crimson when she feels just how damp her panties are _still_  and how in the hell is she supposed to go back out there now? She turns on the tap and washes her hands before pressing the cold water against her face, her neck, trying to cool the fire inside. 

She takes one last good look at herself, now fully dressed, and runs her fingers through her hair. Aside from the series of hickeys that would no doubt darken to a horrifying shade in the days to come, you would never know what had just happened just by looking at her. You would never know she had just gone to war against time  by fucking a man she’d come to care for and respect and the idea makes her shiver. 

_What had she done?_

She takes a series of deep, centering breaths and turns back to the door. She breathes again, and then again once she puts her hand on the knob before she opens it again. 

He is there, standing there in his jeans and nothing else looking disarmingly disheveled. He’d turned on a lamp on his nightstand and it casts long, strange shadows around the room. He meets her eyes across the room and they both freeze.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and she tries to not let her eyes go to the cut of his hipbones, the fact that she can tell he didn’t bother putting back on his boxer-briefs. The idea that she even knows his preferred cut of underwear is enough to lock herself back in his bathroom for the rest of her life.  

He works his jaw a bit before offering a tentative: “Now what?” 

“Now...” She swallows against the need to sweep his hair back off of his forehead. “Now we wait and see what happens.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops I wrote more. I just need them to bang more. I'm not sorry about it.
> 
> Set between 1x11 and during 1x12.

He offers to drive her back to her car, but she calls a cab instead so he offers to make her a cup of coffee while she waits. She is already jittery as hell but she accepts because she needs something to do with her hands besides remember how his skin felt beneath her fingertips. She hovers in the doorway of his small kitchen as he scoops the grounds and measures water. Her eyes go to the little red light above the carafe and she just stares because she cannot look at him.

She cannot speak to him.

She can hardly breathe.

A clock ticks on the wall above his table for two (even though there is only one chair) and she tries to sync her racing heart to its steady rhythm - to the rhythm of time - and a hysterical chuckle chokes in her throat. A dark part of her heart wants to take down that clock and smash it to bits. It reminds her too much of David Rittenhouse, his son, a gun pointed at Wyatt’s head - and she has made a mistake. 

She has made an awful mistake.

He pours the black, steaming liquid into two mismatched, military-sloganed mugs. 

“Cream or sugar?” He asks, and the sound of his voice startles her. 

“What?” She looks at him and feels her face heat. He side eyes the mugs on the counter. “Oh. Yes. Cream please.” 

He goes to the fridge and pulls out a carton of milk. She tracks him as he doctors her drink. 

“More?” He holds the plastic handle of the jug and looks at her with eyes sharp enough to cut diamonds, soft enough to fall into - wait. He had asked a question. 

“That’s perfect, thanks.” It doesn’t really matter. She doesn’t plan on drinking it - they both just really need a way to fill the time. 

Time. 

The damn reason she is here in this kitchen where the fluorescent lights aren’t doing anyone any favors. Her mind races. 

Time.

History. 

Rittenhouse. 

_ Rotten _ house. 

Flynn.

Flynn and  _ her journal _ . 

Amy. 

_ Amy _ . 

The name alone is a stab to the gut. 

Had she really does this for her? Would it make a difference? Would anything ever make a difference? It seems like everything they try to do to fix the situation only makes new, worse, more complicated problems.

He hands her a mug. It says ARMY on the side in bold black letters. His hands don’t shake. Hers do. She wonders if he has done this before - if that is why he is so calm - if she is just another girl in the long line of hookups he has used to replace Jessica. She probably is and that is the most humiliating part. He probably will forget about this and she never will and -

“We don’t have to talk about it.” He folds himself against the counter a safe distance away but she knows there is really not such thing as a safe distance when it comes to Wyatt Logan. 

“O-Okay.” She bobs her head and looks at her coffee. It is just how she likes it, but the idea of drinking it makes her nauseous.

“...Unless you want to?”

He’s putting out feelers, aiming for tact instead of his usual take-no-prisoners approach and she supposes she should be grateful, but it uneases her. Somehow it would be easier if he was brusque. It would be easier to throw up her walls and deflect, but now he is looking at her with blue eyes wide and cautious like he cares and that is not fair. It is not fair at all because she does  _ not _ want to talk about it. She has no idea  _ how _ to talk about it - especially if he is going to pretend like it matters. 

What if it  _ does _ matter?

She cannot.

“You said it was for - history. And after we - after you said that now we have to wait.” He presses into her silence, prompting, and crosses his arms over his broad (t-shirt covered - thank  _ goodness _ ) chest. She’s tasted that chest and suddenly she  _ needs _ to drink her coffee because she realizes he is still stuck to the back of her tongue. “What did you mean by that?”

She gulps two deep swallows from her mug and doesn’t taste it. All she can taste is him. She wonders how long that will last.

She’d spend longer lamenting that truth, but there is a question to answer and to be honest she has no idea even where to begin. 

“I don’t know I just -” She looks down at her shoes. “I had a theory.” 

“What theory?” He prods, but it is not demanding. Something curious scratches behind his words and she wonders just what kind of answer he is expecting from her. 

Her eyes come back up to him, and she wants to tell him that it doesn’t matter - that this had all been some sort of fluke brought on by stress and insomnia and - you know - her life as she knew it being altered beyond seeming repair, but she knows that is not the truth. She doesn’t do anything, say anything, without  _ knowing _ the reason and the cause behind it. She knows just why she suggested this but that does not mean she is ready to admit it. 

“It’s just -” Her cell rings and she jumps like a gunshot (except at this point a gunshot may be less startling than her phone ringing) and she drops the mug. It falls and shatters, the rest of her coffee splatters all over the bottom of her jeans and the linoleum floor. “ _ Shit _ !” 

She flutters between answering the phone and picking up broken pieces. 

“Answer it.” Wyatt tells her, always so cool under pressure, as he reaches for a roll of paper towels. 

She obeys. The conversation lasts all of two seconds. 

“My cab is here.” She says and hesitates as he kneels and begins mopping up her spill. “I have to go. I could - I’m so sorry about the mug.” 

He does not look up from his work. “It was free.”

“I should stay. I’ll get another cab. I should stay and help clean up this mess.” She thinks to move, doesn’t. 

He rocks back on his heels and sighs. “What’s done is done. It’s fine.” 

She still doesn’t move. 

“Lucy.” He says her name and that gets her attention. She did not expect that. Her eyes flash to his. “It’s okay, you know. All of it. We’re good.” 

Her throat works, but she can neither swallow nor speak. She just stares.

He gestures with his head towards the entryway with his head. “Your cab is waiting.” 

It is all the dismissal she needs but she still hesitates. His head falls and they both look at the ceramic pieces scattered across the floor. The juxtaposition of both Wyatt on his knees and the shattered ceramics at her feet is enough to make her heart leap to her throat and she does not want to dissect the reason why. 

She all but runs out of his door and counts it a victory that she does not cry until she makes it to the cab. 

What in the  _ hell _ had she just done?

….

Amy isn’t at the house. 

She doesn’t know why she thought she would be. 

All she did was make a shitty decision and sleep with someone inappropriate in the current timeline. That wouldn’t bring her sister back. That wouldn’t change the fact that somewhere, out there, Garcia Flynn is already planning another way to make her life impossible while she is (apparently) trying to beat him to it.

She drops her purse on the kitchen stool and heads to the freezer. With any luck, her mom will have left some of the Ben & Jerry’s she bought on the last trip to the market. She needs it. Either that or a shot of whiskey, but she is making enough poor decisions without being inebriated so she’ll stick with icecream for now. 

No sooner had she found the Phish Food and turned to find a spoon then she sees him. She jumps, but manages to keep a hold of the ice cream carton which makes her one for two tonight. 

“Noah.” He is in the breakfast nook, but it isn’t breakfast time. Actually she has no idea what time it is, what day it is, what year it is. “What are you doing here?”

He frowns. “You haven’t returned any of my calls. Your mom says you disappear at all hours for work and don’t come back for days. I’m worried about you, Lucy.” 

He comes from where he had been sitting, hands in his pocket, and she acknowledges that he is handsome. He is kind. He is thoughtful and if they were as in love and engaged as those scrapbooks would have her believe then he is probably in quite a bit of pain as well. Guilt rises up to choke her but she screams against it. His pain is not hers.  _ He _ is not hers. No matter what this timeline would have her believe, but she proceeds with caution. 

“I know. I know.” She sets the ice cream on the counter and braces herself. How do you explain the inexplicable? “I’m so sorry. I wish I could explain - I do.” 

He stands on the other side of the island looking like he is going insane. “Then do it. Lucy - dammit. I love you and you’re acting like I’m a total stranger.” 

_ But you are _ . She thinks, barely able to stop herself from  _ saying _ it, and she looks at her hands gripping the edge of the countertop to keep herself from running out of the room.

“There is a lot going on right now that I can’t explain to you - or to anyone. I wish I could, maybe someday, but now…” Her head spins. This is the last thing she needs right now.

“When are you coming home?” He asks and she immediately flashes to images of Wyatt’s condo, nothing on the walls - only the most basic creature comforts, and how that had felt more like a home than all the time she spent with her fiance in their ‘home’. 

She thinks of this place with Amy in it. 

She thinks of everywhere except the place to which he refers. 

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

Noah shows himself out.

….

She goes for a run. It is raining, but she doesn’t care. She just needs to feel something that isn’t the pulsing need she has to go back to Wyatt’s place and clear the air or jump back in his bed or  _ something _ . It really didn’t matter to her exactly what they did so long as they did it together because she is slowly realizing: she has no one else.

Not now.

Not after what they did. 

She has single handedly managed to both create and destroy the only relationship she has in the world in one fell swoop. 

She slows to a walk about two blocks from her house and lets the rain wash her tears.

….

She doesn’t even jump when her phone rings this time. She has set a special ringer for blocked numbers (the only blocked calls she ever gets is from Mason Industries) so she always knows when she needs to start preparing for corsets and polyester. This time, however, she just stares as the phone rings to voicemail. She’s playing Rummikub with her mother and she is letting her mom win and somehow that seems like way more fun than going back in time and seeing  _ him _ right now. 

Her phone rings again, another blocked number, and she knows she should answer it but she stays still.

“Lucy. Your phone is ringing.” Her mother gives her that  _ I raised you better than this _ look. 

“It’s work.” She replies and her mother’s face hardens at the corners of her mouth, her eyes. 

And as badly as Lucy wants to keep ignoring it - she knows that she cannot. Mason Industries will send a car of scary men to make sure she does as they say and she is not about to try to explain that to her mother.

She answers on the last ring and hangs up on a sigh.

“They need me at the office.” 

“Of course they do.” Her mother starts cleaning up the game without even asking. “Should I keep dinner warm for you?” 

Lucy smiles. She wishes….

“Leave me a plate in the fridge.” She stands and kisses her mom on the top of her head and breathes in deeply, not taking any of this time for granted. “I love you, mom.”

….

She knew this moment would be awkward but she hadn’t known just  _ how  _ awkward. Wyatt is there, his slouchy energy magnified by a restless quality previously unseen. She doesn’t want to credit their encounter to his updated body language in her proximity but she is not naive enough to write it off. Still - there is something else there too. Something a bit too raw to just be about their lapse in judgement.

She glances at him when he isn’t looking her way and looks away the second he catches her. His eyes hold questions she is not brave enough to answer, not yet.

Agent Christopher talks to her. Somehow Lucy manages to access the fact storage part of her brain long enough to regurgitate enough useful facts about the time period and completes her report without stuttering because she is fucking capable, okay? That, however, does not stop her from dreading every step she takes towards The Lifeboat after wardrobe.

Wyatt comes up alongside her and she refuses to admit how good he looks in his period duds. It is thoughts like that that got her into this mess in the first place. Instead she becomes preoccupied with the maneuvering of her skirts, balancing her hat.

“You okay?” His voice is low and just for her and she is transported back to his bed.

_Tell me what you like_. He had said and she knows the answer. She likes him, hell, probably loves him, but is nowhere close to being ready to deal with the implications of that. 

“Yeah. You?” She asks, but it is time to climb in. 

He goes in first like he always does so he can offer a hand, help her up, and she never knew that taking someone’s hand could be such sweet torture. He pulls her up and they are a breath away. He is scruffy as usual and she remembers just how that stubble felt rubbing across her throat, her breasts, and lower. 

“Better now.” He says, holding her three beats longer than necessary, and she has no idea what to make of that. 

Before she even has a chance to consider it, Rufus clears his throat. 

“Don’t know about you all, but I’m pretty ready to get going because the sooner we leave the sooner we get back and that sounds pretty damn fine to me.”

They break away and go to their seats, her legs trembling from proximity. Her eyes find his as they buckle and don’t leave until they touch down in 1882.

….

Better now? Better now,  _ how _ ? 

Better because he was on a mission? 

Better because being on a mission meant being closer to her? 

Better because now he had added reasons to be a reckless hothead just to piss her off?

She can think of a lot of things that this situation is, but none of them have the word ‘better’ attached to them.

It is April 2nd. 

She’d heard it in the briefing. She’d seen it on the calendar on the wall of her mother’s kitchen, and yet it hadn’t registered to her for even one instant that she had missed her sister’s birthday. 

Amy was born on April 1st a hundred years from where she currently is, except that she wasn’t. Amy was never was born. Not anymore, and Lucy does not know how that makes anything better. 

He doesn’t make her better. 

In fact, he only makes it worse because if she hadn’t been so damn sidetracked by What She Did With Wyatt (The Thing She Did In Attempts To Bring Back Said Forgotten Sister) - she may have remembered Amy in the first place. 

Mason says that time is linear, but she is ready to write a thesis statement that is just one big, horrible loop.

She walks by a mirror in the saloon they are in searching for leads and looks at herself. It is warped, imperfect, as was common for the time but she cannot find anything she knows to be true about herself in that reflection. She blames the mirror, but she knows it is more than that.

….

She wants out. 

This isn’t fun anymore, not that it was ever  _ fun _ but there have been certain perks (meeting Abraham Lincoln  _ and  _ George Washington - are you serious?!) but none of that matters any more. She can see the strain it is taking on Rufus, on herself, and on Wyatt. 

She thought that maybe she was the only one coming unhinged, but it is clear her entire team is slowly coming apart at the seams. And Flynn Garcia is not helping the issue. In fact he is actively doing the opposite. He is pressing down on them and as much as Lucy hates to admit it - they are cracking.

She’s always been aware of Wyatt’s skill set, apprehensive of it at times, but she’s never been afraid of it. Never until now, sitting at a campfire, listening to him weave a case for something that could only be described as a God Complex and realizing that she has done the same thing. She, the protector of history, is fully and completely willing to do anything to change it. She knows better than to assume that changing one life doesn’t make that much of a difference. 

Changing one life changes the world. 

So when Wyatt looks at her and asks her for back up, she thinks she is going to be sick. She is no sounding board, no paragon of time virtue. She doesn’t deserve to be trusted with this much responsibility, this much  _ power. _

No human does. 

….

_ How far would you go to preserve time?  _ She used to ask herself this question even before taking this job, moreso now that she has, but never did she think that she would give the answer of  _ murder _ . 

She did not want to kill him. 

She never wanted to kill anyone.

She did not sign on for this. Any of this. She knows she’s maintained the continuity of history by eliminating Jesse James in the proper timeframe, but she’s never killed a man before. She never wants to again, hero or villain. She never even wants to be put in the position where she has to choose.

She just wants to go home, but she doesn’t know where that is anymore. 

Amy is gone. She isn’t ever going to get her back. She isn’t ever going to get any of it back. 

She cannot stop shaking. Tears burn the backs of her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. None of it was supposed to be like this. She wants to go back to her old job with its normal hours with its safe predictability and normal boundaries. She wants history to go back to the past, untouched - untouchable, because she cannot take it another second.

She’s in the woods behind the cabin, trying to pull it together, when he finds her. She must look a fright because he eyes her warily at best.

“You did the right thing.” He doesn’t ask if she is okay, knows that she isn’t, and choked laugh breaks from her throat. 

“The right thing? Right by whom?” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I feel like I don’t know which way is up - or if there even  _ is _ an up” 

“He needed to die. He was supposed to die.” Wyatt comes close and grabs her arms. His touch sends electricity through her and she pulls her hand from her eyes. “You did the right thing.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“The guy was a maniac. He’d go on and kill more people than he already had. Sometime in order to prevent a greater evil you have to get your own hands dirty.” 

And suddenly she knows they aren’t talking about Jesse James anymore. She looks at him. He is so close, still holding her arms, the dim light from the cabin illuminating the edges of his face in the cold night. Despite it being spring, the night air is still cold enough that she can see heavy puffs of air coming from his lips. 

Lips she has kissed.

Lips she wants to, against all sound judgement, kiss again.

“You said you had a theory.” His hands tighten. “What was it?”

“It was nothing.” She shakes her head, eyes not leaving his face. “It doesn’t matter. It was stupid.”

“Tell me.” He says and she knows he is not asking. There is something too raw, too desperate in his voice, and she can feel him losing grip the same as she. 

She supposes after all they have been through - after all the lies and confusion - she owes him this truth. No matter how ridiculous. 

“I thought that - uh - I thought that maybe if I did something that  _ I  _ would never do then maybe, somehow, it would change - something. Like Amy.” She cannot make out his expression in the shadows but can feel embarrassment heat her body. “See? I told you. Stupid.”

He is quiet for a few deafening heartbeats. Then:

“You tried to take your life into your own hands. You tried to get back someone you love.” His voice holds gravel, but not cruelty. “I can’t fault you for that.”

It’s easier to talk about this in the dark, easier when she cannot make out his every expression. When she knows he cannot see the hope shine in her eyes.

“Are you going to do it? Are you going to try to save Jessica?” She asks, lips tremblings and not just from the cold.

“I don’t have a choice.” 

“Wyatt…” She wants to tell him he has a choice. She wants to tell him that they all have choices. They don’t have to just take orders anymore - they can make their own. Set their own path like Emma had. Run away and be lost in time, in space, and forget that any of this ever happened, but she cannot.

Because he kisses her. 

She melts into him without a struggle. For the first time in days it feel like she is standing on solid ground because he is holding her. There is no time for gentleness. They fight tongue and teeth against a world that is all too unfair. A world that is just as eager to put them together as it is to tear them apart. 

He groans against her mouth and she hushes him. Rufus is close. Bass is close. They are tending to James and Grant’s bodies, are digging through the piles of modern paraphernalia abounding in the bullet-riddled cabin. This is complicated enough with just the two of them. She doesn’t want an audience. 

He steps and pushes her back against the nearest tree. This is a different side of Wyatt than she had seen the first time. There is something dark, something final, about the way he holds her, kisses her but she is not giving up without a fight. She claws into his shoulders, his back, and holds him that much tighter. He answers by grabbing one of her thighs and hiking it up so her foot hooks around his knee. 

And this is war. 

But she doesn’t know who is fighting.

She is so tired of fighting.

Her hands go to his neck and pull him closer, her body arching up against his. That familiar ache mounts deep inside of her, begging for release. The corset and heavy trappings of clothes feel too small, her skin too exquisitely sensitive with him so near. She wants to feel him. Her fingers go to the buttons on his coat, his vest. 

“Lucy.” He whispers against her lips when small hands slip under his shirt to touch warm skin and the sound of it sends a new shock of pleasure through her system.

She is doing this. He knows that it is she. He does not pull away. So no matter how fucked up this situation may be - she will hold onto that till her dying day.

They don’t have long. 

He hikes her skirt up around her waist as she works loose the buttons on his fly. She can feel his hardness even before it springs up between them. He presses up against her center, thrusting a few nowhere strokes, hitting the oversensitive peak at the top of her sex, before he lines up and drives home. 

She thought she would be used to this. She thought that maybe, after the first time, he wouldn’t feel so big. But he does. Oh -  _ gods _ \- he does, and she sees stars. 

She didn’t think, ever in her life, she would be turned on by something like this. But then again until recently the idea of having primal, urgent, absolutely necessary sex up against the trunk of a tree in 1882 Missouri had never really been an option so she is willing to make an exception because -  _ holy shit _ \- she is not going to fight this. 

His breath comes in harsh pants against her cheek. She grips his shoulders, tries to pull her leg up over his hips to draw him in closer. Despite the cold she can feel sweat break out down her spine, along her hairline. Maybe it is the adrenaline from almost dying, from killing a man, but it only takes a few moments before she is clenching hot and rippling around him. She cannot make out his expression but she can tell from the change in his breathing that he is just as surprised as she is when she clamps around him and everything goes white. 

When she comes back to earth his hips stutter against hers in hard, short thrusts until he collapses against her. His mouth moves against her neck, but it is not a kiss. He is saying something, but she cannot make it out above her hammering heart. She doesn’t know if she wants to because if she does, she may have to acknowledge what just happened.

They stay there frozen, unwilling to face the fallout, until:

“Lucy?” It’s Rufus calling into the night. “Wyatt?” 

They jump apart. Her skirt tumbles back into place as he does his best to fasten his pants, his vest. The proof of their encounter runs down the insides of her trembling legs and she guesses that unprotected sex is something she else does now on top of murder. 

“I’m clean. I’m on the pill.” She says at the same time as she cringes that that is the first thing she thinks to say in this moment.  

“Me too.” His voice has that husky quality she remembers from the first time. She squeezes her legs together. “The clean part.” 

“O - Okay.” She cannot move away from the tree. Her legs shake too badly.

“Wyatt!” It is Rufus again. “Lucy!” 

He probably thinks they’ve been kidnapped or killed or -

“We’re over here!” Wyatt calls back. 

He turns to her and she can see the faintest glint of his eyes in the moonlight. “You head back first. I’ll follow in a bit. It’ll be less suspicious that way.”

She’s not sure how it will be less suspicious, but she is in no place to argue - to think. So she locks her knees and moves. She finds Rufus backlit from the cabin where Bass is still sorting through things he will never understand. 

“Hey.” Rufus greets her. “Where’s Wyatt? Is he okay? Are you okay?” 

She gives him a half smile and hopes to whatever powers existed that she does not reek of sex as much as she thinks she does.

“I don’t think any of us are okay.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during episode 1x13 (Karma Chameleon).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess I am back for more of this.
> 
> I need this show to be renewed so badly. Waiting to hear is killing me so now you all get to share in my pain.
> 
> Everyone is a fucking mess in this.

She knows she shouldn’t have expected hot and heavy sex against a tree in 1882 to bring her sister back, to erase her journal, but still she feels a hundred years older when she finally gets home and nothing has changed.

She is still Lucy Preston. 

Amy still does not exist.

And Garcia Flynn still is so much more than an annoying splinter that refuses to be removed. He is a violent, festering timebomb waiting to blow them all to bits. That isn’t the worst of it though. 

The worst of it is that she is willing to let him.

….

When Wyatt shows up at her door she is mostly surprised because she did not know that he knew where her door was. She had, wrongly, assumed that since she had not known where he lived that he would not know where she did but here he is and she isn’t wearing a bra which is not a big deal since he has seen it  _ all _ but still she clutches her wrapper a bit tighter than normal. Maybe it is less about protecting what he has seen, and more about shielding herself from the words he is saying. 

Of course he is going after Jessica. 

He should. It is the right thing to do. Or at least as right as anything can be when you are altering the space-time continuum. 

Her head hurts.

She slumps onto the stairs. 

This is not what she wants, doesn’t know what she wants, but she is certain she does not want to care about what he is saying to her, to care about what it means in relation to  _ them _ because there is no  _ them. _ There is Lucy. There is Wyatt. There is no Lucy  _ and _ Wyatt, which is exactly why she should not have go after him when he leaves.. 

She should not have grab the sleeve of his leather jacket (so  _ fucking _ cliche that he would have one of those and that he would look so damn good in it) before he is even off the stoop. She should not pull him back inside and shut the door with the momentum of her body slamming into his for a desperate kiss. She should not grab him by the hand and lead him up the stairs. She should not take him into her room, the same room she’d had as a child, and lead him to her twin bed. She should not let him tear off her clothes, should not rip off his, but she does.

She does, and she would do it again and again because this  _ is _ goodbye.

No matter the outcome of this mission, this is the end of them - whatever messed up, nameless thing they are. 

She cries, but not in an obvious way. Tears streak down her cheeks like hidden rivers in the dark as she licks the column of his throat just to taste a different kind of salt. The attempts to reconcile the delusion that this ever meant anything and the knowledge that once he walks out that door that their entire whatever will have to be forgotten history is a Sisyphean task at best. So instead she focused on the slide of his skin against hers, the shape his shoulders take beneath her palms, and the tightening and release of muscles as he thrusts into her. 

This is real.

When he comes back, it may not be. 

Will she remember it? Will she remember the slide of him in her hollow places, the way the tips of her fingers fit so perfectly in the grooves of his back, the wholeness in the way he kisses her? Or will that fade to nothing like her sister? Will it disappear - will she? Will he forget her? It is too much to fathom. 

She hooks her legs around his hips as if she can pull him into her so he can never leave, as if she can force him to implant his memory inside of her womb where it can grow and undeniably flourish. Or can it? She has no idea. She used to know everything. Now she knows nothing but how much she cannot want this, how much she does. 

A faint rap of knuckles ghosts across her door. 

She freezes, but he doesn’t. He keeps his pace, deep and steady within her as if the rest of the world had melted away. Their eyes catch.

“Lucy?” It is her mother. Lucy hears the jangles of the doorknob as her mother rests her hand upon it.

She doesn’t respond at first, fear and disbelief choking her. Lucy knows the rules of time travel. She knows you cannot go back to a time where you already exist as you may not come back whole, but she does not know what to do when your mother may find you fucking your teammate in your childhood bed. Wyatt, however, does not seem so conflicted. He just shortens his thrusts so that they are swift and silent, his eyes stay on hers. 

She thinks to respond.

She bites her lip to stay silent because there is no way she can talk right now. 

She doesn’t know which is worse: her mother knowing the truth between her and Wyatt, or her mother staying gloriously oblivious. Both would be a relief in their own right.

In the end, she hears her mother’s hand fall of the door and she can breathe again. Well. That is until he slips a hand between them to the apex of her thighs and she falls apart. He follows suit. 

….

She walks him downstairs, careful to be silent as tombs down the stairs so as to not wake her mother, and pause at the bottom.

They don’t say anything. 

There is nothing left to say. 

They are always saying goodbye. 

History repeats itself.

She is used to it, will never be used to it, which is probably why she does not put up a fight when he grabs the back of her neck and swallows her kiss. It is like he is charting the terrain of her tongue, the caverns of her cheeks, like he is the master cartographer of her mouth and she does not complain despite the fresh tears the prick her eyes. He is kissing her like he doesn’t want to forget her, but they both know that is beyond them both. 

No memory is safe when the fabric of time is up for alteration.

He pulls back enough to look her in the eyes. She left her wrapper upstairs and she wishes she had grabbed it. She crosses her arms over her chest as a defense instead. 

His lips part as if he to speak. She holds her breath, but his brow furrows and she knows whatever moment had come was now beyond them. 

She lifts onto her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his rough cheek. 

_ I love you _ . She thinks, but does not allow her thoughts to go beyond that. She loves a lot of people, but she can think of a precious few that make her heart ache the way that Wyatt does as he walks out that door.

This time she does not go after him.

….

She should have called Agent Christopher immediately. She should have called her before he was even out the door because this is insanity, but as things stand she can hardly breathe much less pick up the phone. It feels like everything she knows is collapsing around her ears. 

She has always relied on facts, cold and quantifiable. It is easy to point to dates and events that happened on said dates and just  _ know _ that they won’t change. But what if they do? What if you change them? 

_ What would you do to preserve history?  _

She does not know any more. 

She pulls a history volume off the shelf of her mother’s library and thumbs to the Hindenburg. She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what happened at that event, but as she reads she is reminded of a different truth. She is reminded of a world she shaped, she created, that erased her sister, and she should not have this much power.  

No one should.

So she waits to call because if this power exists it should exist to help those who deserve it.

He deserves it.

Wyatt deserves it.

She wonders just what she deserves.

….

She gives him four extra minutes before she calls, but she still hopes to whatever being out there might be listening that they catch him before he goes somewhere she cannot follow.

She is a little disgusted at how sad she is to hear The Lifeboat is already gone, and she swallows down the lump in her throat. Her sadness is unearned. She has no title to it. Yet it is there. 

She wonders, just briefly, what forgetting him would feel like.

….

Going into Mason Industries was never her idea of a good time, but this is a fiasco. 

_ I'd do it myself if I thought it would bring Amy back. _

She’d said and it left her shaking from the truth of it.

There was a time in her life, not that long ago, where if someone asked her if she would change history to save someone she loved she would have laughed. She would have said that it was a silly question because history is immutable. It is irrelevant to even consider such things since they can never be, but that was then.

This is now.

Now time is fluid and she is barely able to ride its currents. 

Agent Christopher’s eyes are hard, unrepentant. She is doing her job, Lucy knows, but Lucy is done doing hers. Not until she sees some definite return on investment. 

She looks to The Lifeboat’s empty bay.

She is done accepting heartache as payment.

….

_ If you care about someone, if you trust someone, if you might even love someone… you’d tell them something like this. _

Lucy raises her chin to hold back the tears burning behind her eyes. 

_ If you might even love someone. _

She cannot consider it, cannot even entertain the idea that Wyatt could feel so deeply for her. It complicates things, and for the first time in her life she hopes that the boys do something stupid. She hopes they mess something up and somehow these feelings in her chest will be ripped out by the new order of things. She hopes they will step off that lifeboat whole and full and she will not feel a thing beyond coworker-ly companionship because  _ something _ is different.

_ Might even love someone. _

Words she is dying to hear, but not now. Not like this. 

Lucy looks away from Jiya’s knowing glance.

….

No matter how many times it happens, it is never any less terrifying or any more expected when she is at the end of a barrel of a gun. Desperate times call for desperate measures and she should have had Jiya stick that tracking device on her butt or somewhere not so easily found.  Anthony isn’t the type to pull a trigger, but then again she isn’t the type either and she had. A braid of fear tightens her spine and she finds herself longing for Wyatt. 

If he were here - but he isn’t. He is trying to resurrect his wife and she cannot entertain these thoughts any longer so she listens to what the older scientist has to say.

Anthony paints a picture for her in shades of gray, each stroke as strange and ephemeral as the last, and she misses the days where black and white existed. When he is done, when she is free, she is nauseous. 

_ What would you do to preserve history? _

She would lie. She would cheat.

_ What would you do to preserve history? _

She would fight. She would kill.

_ What would you do to preserve history? _

She would bend the very laws of the universe. 

With each thought she grows more and more certain that Anthony is right. These machines cannot exist. They are too dangerous, and if she can lie and cheat, and fight and kill in the past - who is the say she cannot do it now in the present? 

_ What would you do to preserve history? _

Anything. Everything. 

_ Amy…! _

She throws up in an alley before hopping into the back of a van and heading back to Mason Industries.  

….

The Lifeboat returns in a flash of heat and light, but she doesn’t feel different. The deep ache in her chest is only compounded when she realizes his mission had failed. Jessica is still dead. She is still dead and she is the one who has to tell him. 

Her words taste like betrayal. 

His face shows it.

Time is not their servant. History bows to no man. 

“I’m sorry.” She hears herself saying again and again. “I’m sorry,” but she knows she is only partially apologizing for keeping Jessica in her grave.  

She is sorry that she loves him.

She does not have time for many more words before they take him away but she can see his horror - his panic. He had failed her again. Her: Jessica. Her: Lucy. The women of his life stack up like collateral damage

Time hasn’t broken her yet, but love will. 

Love will.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So basically I am really sorry this took so long but I kind of had to take a literal sanity break from all things writing to try to learn how to write without abusing alcohol and substances and lemme tell you what it was kind of hilarious to write a chapter having to do with Hemingway while figuring out all these things. Ha! What a trip. 
> 
> This took me three months to write (because I could not even try to write anything there for a solid six months).
> 
> I hope the next one does not take me so long.
> 
> Having Timeless back on air may re-inspire me. w00t!

_**Set during episode 1 x 14 : The Lost Generation** _

She cannot quite pinpoint the moment it all began - which would be fine if she was anyone else - but she isn’t. She is Lucy: the girl who gave plays in her living room about great moments in history with undeniable accuracy. She is Lucy: the girl who had a poster of Abraham Lincoln on her wall as a teenager and contested facts about him to her middle-school history teacher. She is Lucy: the girl who can remember every date, every name, every important event down to its core except for this one.

She does not know when she began falling in love with Wyatt.

Her difficulty - she is certain - lives in the fact that she can hardly even admit to herself that it has gotten this far. It is so easy to write off the feelings she has when she can just point to the stress of the missions and blame that - but she knows that is just a cover. The problem is, however, it is a damn good cover.

Everything is up for grabs when time is on the table.

She remembers everything that happened on those missions. Every word she said. Each person she spoke to. Each thing Flynn forced to change with them scrambling after him but she cannot remember when she dropped her guard enough to let Wyatt in. She can’t remember the moment when he actually decided to Wyatt take advantage of her vulnerability.  

Or she take advantage of his?

Because no matter how many bullets he fired or punches he threw - she knew from that moment in Nazi Germany that his bravery was a front as much as hers. From that moment on she saw all the chinks in the armor of his heart in mirror image to those she had on her own. But had she imagined them? Had she constructed a world where her love could be reciprocated?

She had thought… but then she’d seen his face as he’d left The Lifeboat.

He wants Jessica.

He will always want Jessica.

No matter how many missions she accepts, no matter how many things she changes, she knows she will never change that. She’d seen it in his eyes. She’d heard it in his question. Lucy could rip Jessica from the fabric of time and somehow Wyatt would still want her.

He would always want Jessica, but she remembers the burn of stubble against her chin and had tasted how much he wanted her too.

She presses fingertips to her temple and rubs.

This is madness. Everything in her world is slippery and she can barely grab hold. She wants to hold him.

But when had the want of him become one of her only unchanging pillars among this landscape of shifting sands?

She cannot remember - and that is the problem. She does not do well in this gray world where the only absolute is that everything is up for grabs. She does not do well without him.

But he is gone now - not the same way Jessica or Amy are gone - but he may as well be and she can only do so much.

She can only love so much.

She can only seem to love him.

….

She can see her veins through the thin skin on her wrists, can feel her pulse throbbing in her neck, but this is not Rittenhouse blood. She may not be sure of many things, but she is certain of that.

_It's who you are, Lucy._

His daughter.

_It's who you are, Lucy_

Rittenhouse.

_I will never be a part of this, do you hear me?_

But she already is, in her own way. Each time she fails to stop Rittenhouse, each time she fails to bring back Amy, she is less and less sure she is not playing into exactly whatever game they have decided she is playing. She may not be Rittenhouse but that does not mean she has not been an unwitting, unwilling ally.

What if Flynn is right?

What if the only way to stop them is to burn the house down from the inside, from the foundation? For a single second she wonders what will happen if she kills this man in front of her, her _father_ , right now. She wonders if somehow that will open the doors she needs to bring back Amy, to bring back Wyatt.

She shakes her head.

That thought is nonsense.

Her world may be spinning but she knows staining her hands with more blood only make matters worse. That does not stop her from throwing daggers with her words instead.

_When you're ready to come home I'll be here, Lucy. With open arms._

She chokes down the words that she wants to say - that if she took him in his arms the only reason would be to stab him in the back the way he has stabbed her in the heart.

….

She has dreamed of Paris in 1927 the way that most girls dream about their senior prom or wedding. It is so bright and idealized and perfect that she can almost forget about Benjamin Cahill being her father or how the utter look of betrayal on Rufus’ face is now added in the catalogue of her mind of times she had let down her teammates simply by way of existing.

_Maybe we let Flynn torch history._

She is probably the most surprised out of anyone to hear those words come from her mouth, and yet - she said them.

_What would you do to preserve history?_

Not as much as she had before.

_What would you do to preserve history?_

Nothing if that meant bringing Amy back, bringing Wyatt back.

_What would you do to preserve history?_

Did it even matter when every attempt she has made has seemingly only wrecked the world she knows a little bit more?

_I cannot do this. Not now._

She does not add: _not without Wyatt_.

She does not even if that is what her mind, her heart is screaming.

She does not say it when she is introduced to Walmart-Wyatt Master Sergeant David Baumgardner and he has the audacity to say _Holy Crap_ in regards to time travel.

She remembers the words she had when she found out about The Mothership and they had not been quite so G-rated.

She wants him to break the rules.

 _She_ wants to break the rules.

The admission is stranger than anything as she finally realizes that breaking rules is all she had done since she has taken on this strange mantle of Time Traveling Historian.

Liar.

Cheater.

Murderer (even if history killed Jesse James way before she did).

A few weeks ago she never would have assigned those words to herself but now….

_He's been thoroughly briefed, but show him the ropes._

She accidently almost asks ‘Dave’ to help buckle her in - a force of habit she knows she must forsake but she is not ready yet. She is not ready for Wyatt to be nothing but a memory, but she has a feeling that when people disappear from top-secret government organizations after hijacking a super-secret hitech asset it is not because they are going to make a glorious comeback.

She thinks it is rather the opposite.

She thinks that maybe she will never see Wyatt again and she is sick for an entirely different reason than the velocity and violence that is jumping through seconds, minutes, hours, years, _decades_ to a destination.

He had made her strong: Wyatt.

Now she has to be strong without him.

And she will.

She will even though she may also vomit in the process.

….

She is tired.

Just.

So.

Tired.

But she knows she could be more tired and that keeps her going.

….

She recognizes him before he introduces himself - as if a page from her favorite history books had jumped up and come to life. Ernest Hemingway is, if not larger than life, than at least alive and standing in front of her. For a moment she forgets everything else. For a moment she actually believes she may have the best job ever.

By the time they get to The Only Place That Matters she is rethinking that opinion. Ernest is drunk, drunker than she knew a man could be and still walk, but here they are and he is still drinking. Lucy recognizes figures she knows she cannot approach: Pablo Picasso, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald and she remembers a quote:

_No such thing as a man willing to be honest - that would be like a blind man willing to see._

It has never quite made sense till now.

But as Josephine Baker approaches she thinks she may be able to give a lecture on its finer nuances.

She is unstoppable: a woman of with potential beyond her time. If she was born in 2017 Lucy would not be surprised if she became president but in this day and age she has risen nearly as high as she can go. Lucy thinks to tell Josephine just that. That in the future things, while far from perfect, are better for women of all classes and creeds. She wants to tell her to give her hope, to infuse a bit of light into this lost generation when she herself has so little hope left, but she doesn’t. She’s stepped on enough butterflies and she does not want to keep this formidable woman from completing her destiny even if it is less than Lucy knows it could be.

(For the first time she wonders if she herself, Lucy, has a destiny - if it even matters - if it ever will - )

She can feel her insides quaking. The Lost Generation - she wishes she didn’t feel such a kinship with them.

They are all standing in quicksand, sinking.

She tells Josephine as much and marvels at her unexpected smirk.

This is a woman who has no time for romantics. She made her name by dancing in a bejewelled banana skirt and not much else despite her legacy but she is not cruel. No. There is a sweetness in her face that she has fought to keep - a sweetness Lucy fears she herself is losing.

Lucy had thought to give Josephine hope, but somehow she has ended up on the receiving end.

And in this moment she is ready to stand back up.

She is ready.

She will stand.

With or without Amy or Wyatt or her father.

Lucy will stand - and at this moment she supposes that is more than most could hope for.

….

She thinks she is used to this - this death outside of calculation. She’s read the numbers. She knows the astronomical casualty of war. She knows the grim reality of assasination a bit too well. Yet she still cannot quite resign herself to accept the color of David’s blood.

She does not know how to accept that his mother will not be able to bury him - much less even be allowed to know how he died.

She does not know how to accept that he is just one of many that could soon suffer similar fates.

She does not know how to mourn their unlived futures.

She does not know how Rittenhouse has survived this long or how her blood determines her course or why Wyatt had to go after Jessica -

She does not know, she does know, and that enrages her.

The world is a wash of gray - always changing shades.

Gray: the shade of a storm, the color of twilight.

Gray: the space between what is right and what she wants to be right.

Gray: murky water hiding its depths  (how deep -? maybe if she just holds her breath -?)

She wishes she knew what shade this is - how dark and irreversible.

She thinks maybe it is a moment of growth that she does not just wish for black and white - that she is becoming comfortable in the gray - but then she thinks perhaps that that may be the problem.

….

_His name is David Baumgardner, by the way._

She could spit in Flynn’s face - could punch it. This is not the way it was supposed to go. ‘Dave’ didn’t know the rules, not really, and now he is dead. She cannot believe this is what any of them wanted. Not even Flynn with his eyes dark and watchful and she thinks she sees a flicker of remorse.

Still, he covers it well with a dark breath.

 _I thought your guy was Wyatt_.

And the way he says it - the way it trips off his tongue - says it all. She wants to deny it but he makes it impossible. He knows just how much Wyatt has seen of her, has felt of her, but she will not let it change anything when she calls him to carpet.

She lifts her chin.

She is her own guy now.

Her lip curls over the words: _You knew, didn't you?_

And of course he did. Of course, at least, he pretends to know. She does not know what is in this journal that he has but she cannot deny it feels like he is reading her mind. Even if he is not on her team it feels like betrayal. How could he have not told her - not spared her these games and this heart ache?

She musters every inch of strength allotted her.

She tries not to hate.

_I will convince him to leave Rittenhouse and not become the monster he's supposed to become._

She has no idea how she will do this - if it is even possible, but she has to try. It is either that or sit in the room with Garcia Flynn and have him spew half truths at her until he bends her to his will. It is either that or accept just what her father had told her.

_Rittenhouse isn’t a choice._

She needs to prove to herself that it is.

_You can't just kill Charles Lindbergh. It's not right._

Does she even believe in right or wrong anymore?

_You convince him there's a better way, and I'll spare him._

She needs to prove it to Flynn - that people can change. That _he_ can change even she is not so sure of that herself.

So she goes in and sits down across from a very young, very scared Charles Lindbergh and cannot help but see a perfect reflection of herself in his eyes.

He does not want to be his father’s son any more than she wants to be her father’s daughter.

He does not want to be held captive by Flynn - by Rittenhouse - any more than she does.

He just needs something to believe in and Lucy is back in the bar listening to Josephine talk.

_He doesn't mean aimless. He means battered, broke down, but getting ready to stand back up. There's a difference._

She is ready to teach him how to stand up again - needs him to stand back up again - because maybe then she just might believe that she has a chance.

Then Rufus comes in.

….

She thinks that if she ever makes it to be a grandmother she will laugh with her grandchildren about stories too impossible to be real about time travel and seeing things she should never have been able to see. She will tell them stories about times that no one alive could have experienced wisdom that is inexplicable.  

That is _if_ she makes it to be a grandmother.

At this rate she is pretty certain that is never going to happen.

One of these times that a gun is pointed at her it is going to go off and she is going to be on the receiving end.

In some ways she wishes that day will come sooner than later.

….

Almost every face they come back to is different, clinical, and honestly a surprise that it has not happened sooner.

Lucy thinks of the flashdrive close to her hip that has all of Agent Christopher’s data on it - but it doesn’t matter much of Agent Christopher does not exist to accept it.

She just hopes they have not changed so much that Wyatt -

She shakes it off. There will be a time for that but now she exchanges a look with Rufus and gives a report.

She is telling them that David Baumgardner is dead. She is telling them how and tries to not think of blood - of her blood - of Rittenhouse blood.  

She is tell them facts, numbers, hard and solid but they seems so strange and shifting now. As if the fact that she has always loved and clung to are now a betrayal.

Is there such a thing as a wrong answer when you can go back and change it?

She does not have time to think about these sorts of things and yet they keep poking their way into her mind. She cannot focus, cannot breathe. Her mind is too full.

Is Wyatt still out there?

Is Amy?

No matter what else is happening in this crazy world around them - there is still a chance that she can get them back.

She doesn’t like Agent Neville. She does not like him one bit, but if working with him means that she has a chance to get back any kind of a normal life she will bite that bullet. Hell. She may even take it in the head at this point.

….

She’s rather given up on irony at this point, but she barely chokes down the hysterical laugh that bubbles up her throat at her mother’s gift.

It is the journal she has seen in Garcia Flynn’s hands too many times.

It is the journal she has silently resolved to never fill if it ever came into her hands and her first thought is to burn it, but she does not want to hurt her mom’s feelings. So she smiles a tight smile and holds the gift in brittle hands.

At the first chance she takes it to her room and throws it on her desk. She stares at it and bites at her cuticle. Amy would slap her hand out of her mouth - always trying to break her sister of that habit - but Amy isn’t there. Amy isn’t there and that screw that has been rattling around in her chest for days finally shakes loose.

She takes a pen from her desk. It is old - from years ago when she did her homework - a navy blue gel pen with glitter in it (about as daring as she ever used to get) and she has to to scratch the tip on the paper several times before the ink flows again.

Then with bold, precise, strokes she sends Garcia Flynn a message she hopes he chokes on.

**_FUCK_ **

**_YOU_ **

It is childish, she knows, and maybe that is where this all starts. Maybe time is a circle and Flynn has already seen this and it will not be shock and everything they are doing is just like a rat running in a wheel. Or maybe not and he will see this and swallow his own tongue.

She throws the journal back in the drawer with her pen and slams it shut.

….

It isn’t relief so much as it is like standing in the eye of a hurricane when Wyatt walks into that warehouse. Her lungs burn as if she hasn’t been breathing for years and there is so much to say - so many things - but she chokes on them. She barely manages two breathless words.

_You’re okay._

And he is. The skin around his eyes is a little tight and he smells like he hasn’t showered since 1984 but she soaks it in because he is here and he is holding her and for the first time in a long time she feels like something just might be going right.  
….

They can’t come and go any more than necessary on the off chance they will be tracked back here so they are taking their time before they make any moves. Their phones are off. The lights are down to the emergency settings giving the whole space the eerie feeling that they may be existing outside of time somehow. And maybe they are. Lucy knows enough at this point to know that anything is possible.

Agent Christopher is talking technical specs with Rufus - strategizing a battle plan against an enemy they haven’t even truly seen. She and Wyatt stand away from each other, her back against a wall, his shoulder butting against a pipe.

She does not know if he is listening, but she has drifted.

Fighting Rittenhouse feels an awful lot like boxing shadows and she does not know how to help in this scenario.

For all her historical knowledge, her encyclopedic memory of battles and espionage, she is coming up with a big blank on this one. Insidious global shadow organizations aren’t really her forte. It is overwhelming and she pushes off the wall with a sigh that might have been a groan.

All eyes zero in on her.

“I - uh -” she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she cannot just stand there for one more second. “I’m just going to stretch my legs. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Rufus and Agent Christopher both seem to understand, and nod before diving back into their conversation. She cannot quite bring herself to look at Wyatt for his reaction.

The longer she stands there with him just being there - so close - makes everything that much more complicated.

She knows they are fighting something so impossibly huge that she should not even have room to care about the fact that he went back for Jessica but she does. He went back for her and she cannot blame him but she also not feel great about it. As glad as she is to see him, as great as it felt to hug him and hear him say he was here for them, he had made a choice. He made a choice and it wasn’t her and that was fine until now. Now he is standing there just looking like he is thinking of the next dangerous, hotheaded moved he may try and it is breaking her heart.

She is just tired.

That’s all. That’s what she tells herself as she slugs back through rows of crates and equipment.

She is tired.

That is why she feels this way.

Her heart is not breaking.

If her heart was breaking that would be that he is breaking it and - well that would mean - she shakes her head and slumps back in an obscure crevice in their home base.  

It is a decently sized warehouse and she has no idea what is in any of these boxes or what any of these tools are for, but she is glad now that she is able to get this far away from the group. Even if it is just for a minute. Even just a second.

Her eyes burn.

She doesn’t fight it.

She has been fighting for what feels like years and she just needs a minute.

She cries for all of it: Amy, her father, the journal, Rittenhouse, Rufus, Jiya, Agent Christopher, tension, Flynn, relief, her mother, exhaustion, _Wyatt_ \- and she does not hear him approach. Her sobs are too deep - too profound despite their muffling - to be interrupted by footsteps, but when he wraps his arms around her she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt who is holding her.

She sinks into him. Months of uncertainty, fear, and heartache bleed through her tears onto the shoulder of his stupid leather jacket. He never says a word, never asks her to explain because he knows. He knows exactly what she is going through and perhaps that is the reason why she doesn’t fight when he strokes her hair and whispers shushes into the shell of her ear.

Perhaps he is taking as much comfort from her as she is from him.

Perhaps since he hadn’t been able to bring back Jessica -

She looks up at him, eyes worse for tears, and she struggles for the words to say to him.

She wants to be angry, but she cannot be.

She had no claim on him.

It is her fault for falling in love.

It is her fault for wanting him as much as she does.

“I’m so s-sorry.” She hardly manages and just like back in the landing bay she cannot quite tell him why.

He shushes her again, arms tightening, but she cannot stop.

“I’m sorry.” She says again, hands reaching up to grab his face - his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m _sorry_.” Each time her mouth curls around an apology she breaks a little further.

“Stop,” she hears him but she is unable to obey, apologies tumbling from her on gasping breaths. “Stop!” He grabs her arms as if to shake her but still she cannot stop her tumbling tongue.

He does it for her.

His kiss his is expected and a surprise all at once. She responds without thought. Each muscle in her body tenses and releases with the contact. She has wanted this, can’t want this as much as she does.

She pulls back.

“Wyatt -” She doesn’t know what to say.

“Please - Lucy - let me…” She can hardly see his face in the emergency lights, his pupils wide and blown out as his face descends on hers once more.

He drinks from her like a man in the desert. Like he is lost and she found. Like maybe, just maybe, this has hurt him as much as it hurt her.

Her shoulders shake as she crumbles into him. She knows she should put up more of a fight - demand a conversation first - but that has never been who they are. They aren’t the talking kind. Honesty is reserved for some other sacred corner of the universe, but not for them. Not when their entire relationship has been built on lies and convenient truth.

This feeling burning in her chest is anything but convenient.

Still she thinks his lips taste like sincerity. She thinks the way his tongue traces her teeth feels like unblemished need. She thinks the way his shoulders quake beneath her hands might mirror the trembling of her own. She thinks that maybe that is its own form of honesty. She thinks that maybe that is enough for now.

One of his hands skirts around to the front of her pants and fiddles with the fastener.

“Not here.” She pulls back just far enough to choke, but not too far because she wants it. She wants him, but she also doesn’t want Agent Christopher or Rufus to find them. “Not now.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers dig beneath the elastic of her underwear and she is lost.

Her own hand drags down his torso but he stops her.

“Not me. Just you.”

She doesn’t quite believe him, has felt him hard against her stomach, and pulls back to look in his eyes even as his fingers dip inside of her.

“Why?” Her voice is breathy. It is honestly embarrassing how turned on she is already.

His eyes are black moons, drawing her in. His voice a low rasp tickling down her spine. “You deserve better.”

He crooks his fingers just so and she gasps. She doesn’t have time to ask what that means, what any of this means, because he is kissing her again. It is all she can do to hold on and keep it down. Her body starts to lose itself, knees weakening, and he catches her between his body and the wall.

“Next time…” His fingers keep a good pace rubbing the places he is learning she likes, her body building to the peak more quickly than she imagined possible. “Next time we do this right.”

And with that - just the promise that this is not some strange goodbye or final send off - is enough to push her over the edge.

She bites her lip to keep the whimpers at bay as she clenches and shudders around his fingers. He slows down as she does, weaning her off the high, until she is sated and silent against him. He pulls out his hand and re-fastens her pants.

She notices tries to not let it hurt when he rubs his fingers against the leg of his jeans but then again what is he supposed to do in these circumstances?

She wants to reach for him, to thank him, but she is not sure either of those things are a good idea with the state he is in. She can practically feel the arousal rolling off of him in waves and he’d already made it clear that he is not interested in finishing what they started tonight.

_Next time._

A shiver shoots down her spine.

He seems to sense the same awkward pause in the conversation they will have to have if they make it through this mess. She hears him take a breath like he is going to say something, but then releases it with a sigh that speaks its own language. He leans in and presses his lips to her forehead and lingers there - just breathing - before he turns on a heel and starts walking away.

“Wyatt.” She takes a step towards him but pauses.

He turns to look back at her, his face in shadow.

“I - I’m sorry.” She is not apologizing so much as she is using the only language she knows how to when it comes to him - keeps everything just beneath the surface.

He looks at his feet, hands jammed in his pockets to keep his pants off off his (no doubt painful) hard on.

“No, Lucy.” He looks back at her - his eyes catching just the barest glimmer of light. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I want to write more, but I don't know if I will have time. I have a lot of other things going on in my fandom writing (Mostly in the Frozen universe) but who knows...?


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